Hyperledger targets supply chains with Grid

Supply chain is commonly cited as one of the most promising distributed ledger use-cases.

Initiatives focused on building supply chain solutions will benefit from shared, reusable tools. Hyperledger Grid seeks to assemble these shared capabilities in order to accelerate the development of ledger-based solutions for all types of cross-industry supply chain scenarios.

Grid intends to:

Provide reference implementations of supply chain-centric data types, data models, and smart contract based business logic – all anchored on existing, open standards and industry best practices. Showcase in authentic and practical ways how to combine components from the Hyperledger stack into a single, effective business solution.

What is Grid?

Hyperledger Grid is a framework. It’s not a blockchain and it’s not an application. Grid is an ecosystem of technologies, frameworks, and libraries that work together, letting application developers make the choice as to which components are most appropriate for their industry or market model.

Hyperledger platforms are flexible by design, but, as such, do not speak the language of any business or have opinions on how basic data types should be stored. In reality, enterprise business systems and market models are actually quite mature, as organizations have been transacting electronically based on common standards for decades. Grid will provide a place for implementations of these standards and norms.

The initial linkage between Grid and other elements in the stack will be via Sabre, a WebAssembly (WASM) Smart Contract engine. By adopting this approach, Grid asserts the strategic importance of WASM and provides a clear interface for integration with platforms inside and outside of Hyperledger. It is our hope and expectation that WASM and Sabre become a de facto Hyperledger standard.

What’s Next?

Initially, we plan to anchor much of the domain model work on GS1/GTIN standards, but many other implementations could be contributed and published, including models such as those being created by the Open Data Initiative, or more nuanced industry models like Identification of Medicinal Products (IDMP).

Examples of what Grid has on its roadmap:

Product Identity Location Certification

Likewise, there are some common types of transactions that occur in supply chain scenarios. Grid will also provide a reference implementation of scenarios, such as:

Asset transformation / refinement Asset exchange Asset tracking

There is also work planned around sample applications that demonstrate how to use these models. And much, much more!

Who’s Involved?

Cargill, Intel and Bitwise IO have been the primary contributors to this initial initiative, but endorsements and/or contributions are in flight from several other organizations. We are excited by the enthusiastic response from like-minded members of the community and look forward to collaborating further.

Contributed | what does this mean?

This content is contributed or sourced from third parties but has been subject to Finextra editorial review.